Woke up and it was pretty sunny already at 6am so I figured it was gonna be a nice day. Had breakfast downstairs and saw an old guy who was English as I heard him saying his room number when the waitress asked. So maybe I’m not the only one here who doesn’t speak the lingo lol. After breakfast I went back to the room and go showered and ready changed then went up to the roof terrace to catch some rays. I’m trying to do as I promised and only go in the sun in the “safe” hours before 11am and after 5pm. It;’s working out to great for the tan though and we are off to a club tomorrow night so might have to cheat tomorrow and do a bit longer. I’m wearing factor 30 so I should hopefully get a nice colour and not go bright red. ** cut to me tomorrow night crying cos Im like a lobster and can’t go out lol**
After a few hours in the sun I did a quick hour in the gym (okay 40 minutes) then got another shower and dressed in jeans so I could go for a wander without looking like a Brit abroad as nobody seems to wear shorts as they all live here lol. I went for a wander up the road looking for a shopping centre but it all seemed to be just small shops. On my travels I went into a small shop to get something to eat. It was pretty busy and I didn’t like holding up the queue so kinda went for the first thing I could see that I could pronounce that looked nice lol. I ordered a croqueta de papa (whatever that meant). It looked a bit like a large potato croquette but could have been anything for all I knew. The woman said a load of stuff and pointed at a piece of paper, which I took to mean “do you want it wrapping”. So I said “Si” and she then wrapped it and stuck it in the microwave to heat it up. When I tasted it I found that it was indeed just a big potato croquette with spring onions in. Nice as it was it didn’t really fill me up so in the interest of science to practice my Spanish I tried another shop and ordered “ una empanda con carne y una con Jamon” which I took to be a small pasty with meat and one with ham. Sure enough that’s what it was, but sadly it was ten tone of puff pasty (can you say that these days or has it changed its name to something more PC?). When you bit into it you were showered with a mass of crumbs and even when you got further in there didn’t seem to be muc in the way of filling. Unless of course you count more pastry lol. I might add that these were each only the size of half your palm so Im not a big fat nacker or owt. Anyway I binned half of pasty number 2 as it was much the same but with a bit of ham and sweetcorn in.
Asked a few people where the shopping centre was in my best pigeon Spanish but from what I could gather you needed to get on a bus. It was about 3.30pm by the time I got to the top of the road near the funfair we’d been to so I thought it a bit let to be trekking across town on a bus so headed back to the hotel. When I got to the hotel I asked reception for an adaptor as I had bought some hair clippers in Oz but they had an Australian plug on them. Luckily the guy managed to get me one so I gave myself a number one all over, saves finding a hair dressers every two weeks.
When Ismael got back from work it was about 6pm cos he didn’t have night classes so we got changed and headed over to the Shopping Centre as he was convince it was walking distance. He’d brought all the stuff with him from his house to make some “Mate” (pronounced Mat-ay) as its something everyone drinks here and I wanted to try it. Basically you have this official Mate cup thing made of a kind of hollowed plant pod of some sort, this is then wrapped in leather with a metal rip. You have metal straw thing to drink it out of. It filled with some stuff that looks like dried herbs but is some kind of tea. You then have to carry that and a flask of hot water with you around the streets to keep topping it up. The metal straw thing has a kind oc thick spoon at the end that has hole in it and acts like a filter so you don tsuck up the leaves or whatever.
Anyway we got all the claptrap together and made this mate to take with us to the shopping centre. I tried it……VILE ! After all that bloody description above too lol. It tastes like a mixture between tobacco and tea. Or the content of an ashtray or something. It’s really bitter and just tastes weird. Yet everyone here seems to love it. I guess it’s a kind of social thing as loads of people along the Rambla always have it and at the fun fair there was just rows and rows of people drinking it. Anyway nasty as it was I’m gonna get myself a souvenir cup thing to bring home lol.
Found the shopping centre, which was 4, blocks up and 4 blocks to the left (but the blocks are all lob sided so you’d never find it if you didn’t know). It apparently used to be an old prison but looked pretty nice from the outside. Inside it was nothing special it just had the kind of stuff we could get at home but surprisingly expensive considering everything else is cheap. Ismael said its cos they import most things from Argentina. So I’m gonna wait until I got to Buenos Aires to buy clothes n stuff.
Headed back to the hotel and went to the restaurant so some food at the place round the corner that does nice food. I had some kind of meat with chips that I was told was the tender part from the side of the cow near the ribs. Ismael had chicken stroganoff (which was a new one on me I thought it was usually beef).
Got to bed about 1:30am – knackered !
Comments